


Pathetic

by Sarcasticles



Category: One Piece
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, appropriation of classical music for purposes of fanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27420496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarcasticles/pseuds/Sarcasticles
Summary: Pa·thet·ic:1. Arousing pity, especially through vulnerability or sadness.2. Relating to the emotions3. Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	Pathetic

_First Movement—Exposition  
  
_

There were times Brook wondered if he truly existed.

His dead, tired bones could no longer discern the difference between warm and cold, but they yearned for the sun all the same. It had been days, or months, or perhaps even years since he’d seen the sun last. Time was meaningless in the mists of the Florian Triangle. He had tried, in the beginning, to keep track, but it was impossible, even if he could remember that he was supposed to care.

Caring, likewise, was difficult. If there was a purpose to the endless suffering that was his existence, Brook couldn’t grasp it. He talked sometimes to the skulls of his dead crew, but unlike him, they could never talk back. He was lonely, so desperately lonely that the word had lost all its meaning. The emptiness between his ribs was greater and more consuming than a single word could encompass. 

He’d even been robbed of his shadow, that faithful, silent friend, and with it his only chance at freedom. Brook was a dead man walking in more ways than one, as directionless as the Rumbar Pirates ruderless boat.

Song was the only thing preventing the unmooring of his sanity. Or rather, _a_ song. One that Brook hummed when the dark and the damp creeped on the edges of his vision, bringing echoes of voices long-since lost. He played it on his violin and arranged a dozen variations on the half-rotted grand piano still stained with his own blood. Brook could sing every part of harmony, including a few he’d invented himself.

It wasn’t enough to convince him that he was alive, but it did give him a reason to persist through another day (month, year?) of drudgery.  
  


_Second Movement—Development  
  
_

The Straw Hat Pirates could not sing. 

At least, they could not sing _well_.

A few showed promise, but their voices were untrained, their sense of rhythm and timing laughable at best. And then there was Luffy, who despite his great enthusiasm tended to make any efforts towards cohesion worse rather than better.

The Rumbar Pirates had sung, and done so quite well. There had been an entire repertoire of instruments to choose from for accompaniment. One couldn’t walk two feet without bumping into someone practicing scales or experimenting with a new technique.

But the Straw Hat Pirates were not musically inclined. Brook could coax a few chords out of Franky on guitar, or speak at length about music history with Nico Robin, or even conspire with Usopp to develop some new instrument the world had never seen, but it wasn’t the same. He had no one to complain to when trying to master a troublesome passage in a difficult piece, no like-minded companion to share ideas for new compositions. The Rumbar Pirates was an entire crew of musicians, and now...now Brook was the only one.

Loneliness felt different when surrounded by people. Brook tried to push it aside, but like a bothersome cobweb it kept coming back, taking refuge in the darkest corners of his mind, spinning a web of lies that persisted in the long and silent nights.

But the darkness could not stand against the warmth of the sun, whether it be the celestial ball that eased his aching joints, the smiling figurehead that fearlessly plowed ever-onward on the dangerous seas, or the radiant smile of his captain, strong enough to thaw the iciest heart.  
  


_Third Movement—Recapitulation  
  
_

It seemed unfair to be so soon taken from them. After fifty years of isolation and solitude he thought that he had finally, _finally_ found his place, only for it to be cruelly taken from him.

It was a small solace that this separation was not like the last, temporary rather than temporal. Once again the ones he loved had been forcibly taken from him, leaving him without any way of reaching them, or even knowing that they were alive, and his soul _ached_.

No...Brook knew. He had a sense of these things, and could feel it in his bones. The Straw Hat Pirates would come together again. He had already endured fifty years alone. In the grand scheme of things what was two more?

With this promise came a sense of urgency unlike any he had ever known. A fire burned in the depths of his marrow that the icy gales of undeath could not quench, a new song written in his non-existent heart.

They would meet again, and when they did he would sing away the mists of loneliness and despair. Knitted together like the intricate complexities of a nine-part harmony they would continue on their journey, their sum greater than any of the individual parts. The sun would rise again.

And he would be alive to see it.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I know the Beethoven sonata is technically titled "Pathetique" but that didn't fit with what I was trying to go for, so...
> 
> Originally written at 2 o'clock in the morning when I couldn't sleep, with minimal editing. The three divisions are taken from the three parts of a sonata.


End file.
